1.1 This paper makes the case for a national scheme for the insulation of buildings, especially housing, to very high standards which would be funded by the government printing the money and that money being reclaimed over a long period through a charge on the property. This scheme could be in addition to or instead of Quantitative Easing.

2.1 The UK faces a number of problems in the coming years which could all be mitigated by the introduction of a national scheme for the insulation of buildings to a standard which will meet the 2008 Climate Change Act’s legal requirements for an 80% reduction in energy use by 2050.

2.2 Rather than the Bank of England pumping Quantitative Easing (QE) money into the banks and seeing it swallowed with little effect in the general economy, the top down approach, a scheme such as this would send a flood of money around the economy and rejuvenate it from the bottom up. The money would end up in the banks in the end but would have done some good on the way there. The building industry has traditionally led the country out of recession and could do so again with this scheme.

2.3 This way of boosting the economy using the building industry is more efficient than by boosting new build as new build is about 70% materials and 30% labour whereas this type of refurbishment work is about 30% materials and 70% labour. There are more jobs created in refurbishment work than in new build.

3.1 Among the problems referred to in the first paragraph are:-

1 A national indebtedness problem requiring a reduction in national borrowing and spending.
2 A personal indebtedness problem requiring a reduction in spending and an increase in saving.
3 A shortage of liquidity in the banking system leading to a reduction in lending.
4 The failure of the first round of QE to stimulate lending to business.
5 Lack of growth in the economy.
6 A need to spend more on a personal basis, which would have to be funded by increased borrowing, to stimulate growth in the economy.
7 An increasing balance of payments deficit caused in part by the average 6% per annum depletion of North Sea oil and gas reserves, together with a circa 20% reduction in production this year (2011), and the necessity to import replacement fuel.
8 Fuel supply difficulties caused by political action, world shortages, high growth rates in China, India and Brazil and higher fuel use in the producing countries.
9 A 40% reduction in our electricity generation capacity in the next five to ten years as our nuclear and coal generation plants are phased out.
10 The Kyoto requirement to reduce our fossil fuel use by 80% by 2050 and the Climate Change Act setting that requirement into law.
11 An aged housing stock with low insulation, air tightness and thermal comfort levels.
12 An ageing population which requires higher temperatures for thermal comfort.
13 Fuel poverty created by increasing fuel world prices, static wage/salary levels and lowering pension payments.
14 Low interest payments to savers, mainly the elderly wishing to supplement their devastated pensions.

3.2 The government has tried to address some these factors with the Green Deal (GD) and to address energy efficiency but this will, unfortunately fail. It will fail for five reasons:-

1 The purported £10,000 available in the GD is not enough for any significant work to be done.
2 The GD Golden Rule requires an economically viable solution to individual installations
3 People are unwilling to spend money in the current climate of financial uncertainty
4 Interest will be charged on the sum borrowed, which will probably double the repayments over the period of the loan.
5 The workings of the GD are too slow to address the problem as it is market led.
6 Take up has to be very strong to get the numbers needed and currently there is no incentive for this.

3.3 In the first case above, the sum available is not enough to address the 80% reduction in fossil fuel use required by the Kyoto commitment. To address this reduction a huge increase in the insulation standard of all the building stock is required. In an older solid walled house it would be necessary to install insulation to the walls, the capital cost of which would be far too high to be covered the initial savings available, let alone all the other measures such as draught proofing, loft insulation, ventilation and window replacement. As future fuel costs rise, however, there would be an immense saving available. In a modern cavity walled house the 80% reduction would require not only the insulation of the cavity but also exterior wall insulation as well as the above additional measures required for a solid walled house.

3.4 In the second case, the Kyoto requirement is for an 80% reduction in fuel use and is not an economic judgement but an environmental necessity, so why judge the remediation measures required on the basis of a notional economic payback? We have to reduce, by legal requirement, the country’s fossil fuel use by 80% so the decision of what to do cannot be made on the basis of whether the measures taken will give an economic payback. Also with the probable volatility of future fuel prices it is not possible to calculate the future fuel saving in order to calculate an economic return. Even the government is telling us that the future trend in fuel prices will be upwards, and not by small jumps either. Past fuel price increases and the intimation of future shortages must lead to the supposition that future fuel prices will be much higher than today’s. Working on this basis spending a lot on high levels of insulation looks to be a good investment.

3.5 People’s unwillingness to spend at the moment is fuelled by the uncertainty over job and wage cuts and the near certainty of cost of living rises. With this scheme there would be no outlay to put off householders.

3.6 Fourthly, why should interest to be charged on the expenditure required to facilitate a government policy such as reaching the Kyoto requirement, especially in our current world financial predicament? There are two ways that money can be introduced into the national financial system; by the currently popular way of the banks lending money to individuals and companies and charging interest; and, secondly, by the government spending the money into existence for capital projects; that is printing it. This does not attract an interest charge.

3.7 This latter measure could be very inflationary, but no more so than uncontrolled lending by banks, if no measures were taken to remove the money from the system once it had done its job. In the proposed case here of a scheme of insulation there would be a saving to the householder of about 80% over their previous fuel bills which would enable them to repay the installation costs over a number of years. The repayments would be in the form of a charge on the house, not the owner, so that, in the case where the house was sold on, the charge, along with the benefits of the reduced fuel bills, would be passed on to the new owner, as in the Green Deal. The level of the repayments could be adjusted to suit the government’s requirements to allow some of the savings to be used by the householder to either repay existing debt or to put money back into the economy through additional spending power.

3.8 Fifthly, the scale of the problem is immense. We have about 40 years, until 2050, in which to achieve the insulation of the 25 million dwellings in UK. This means we have to insulate 625,000 homes per year or 2,400 per working day every day until 2050. We are currently not even insulating 2.4 homes per day to the required standard, let alone 2400. With a market led scheme and a standard distribution curve this number could swell to 5 million installations a year or nearly 14,000 per day.

3.9 It would be essential for most of the buildings to be insulated externally as, if the insulation were fitted internally, this would necessitate the removal and refitting of the kitchen, utility room, bathrooms and much fitted furniture, necessitating the temporary rehousing of the occupants.

3.10 If the work took eight weeks per house, with an average of 2.4 occupants per house that would require 2,400 x 2.4 x 8 x 7 = 322,560 temporary beds per day to accommodate the displaced people.

3.11 This would add considerably to the costs. Internal insulation would also not be as effective as external insulation as there would be considerable cold bridging and there would be a risk to the structure of many of the buildings from interstitial condensation caused by the exterior walls becoming much colder. So it would be best for the insulation to be fitted externally in most circumstances.

3.12 On the basis of external insulation and the other measures enumerated above, say it was 6 weeks work for 3 men per house. That would give 216,000 man days work per day or 216,000 new jobs in installation alone, plus work for supervisors, scaffolders, designers, trainers, plus the extra jobs in insulation manufacture and delivery. These would be new jobs requiring extensive training and would be created mostly in this country as most of the insulation materials required are manufactured here.

3.13 To insulate each house on an individual contract basis to achieve an 80% reduction would cost about £20,000 on average, taking into account differing house sizes and the mix of detached, semi detached and terraced houses. This is unaffordable on an individual or economic basis and it would also be an inefficient use of labour. On a larger contract basis for, say, a street at a time this could be reduced to about £13,000 per house.

3.14 This would give a n average cost per year of £8.125 billion which, in view of the £75 billion just injected into the banking system by the Bank of England, is very affordable.

3.15 Government should print the money to pay for this, rather than borrow it from banks, which don’t have it in the first place, as proposed in the GD and tax it back from the fuel savings, as also proposed in the GD, in order to write off the printed money and prevent excessive inflation.

3.16 About 40% of the total energy used in the UK is in heating. As at least 80% could be saved by this method it would lead to a 32% saving in the nation’s energy bill, much of that on gas. As our North Sea oil and gas are depleting at about 6% per year this would make a considerable difference to the balance of payments.

3.17 Fuel poverty would be reduced to almost zero at a time of rapidly increasing fuel prices.

3.18 The nation’s housing stock would be upgraded and protected from major degradation.

3.19 We would have a surplus of gas which could be temporarily diverted into electricity generation until renewable sources of generation were bought on stream.

3.20 The increased numbers of people in work in the building industry required to carry out the scheme would circulate more money throughout the economy which would promote growth in other sectors and would help refinance the retail banks by increasing their cash flow: all this without major inflationary pressure. Even if there were some inflation this would help reduce the level of national debt, as is policy throughout the western world.

4.1 In our practice, we have already designed two house renovations of 1970s houses which have measured fuel savings from fuel bills of 72% and 82% and have achieved SuperHomes Awards . We have another such installation at the planning stage which should achieve 80% and others are in the pipeline. Other members of the AECB, The Association for Environment Conscious Building, of which I am a member, have achieved similar savings. We know from our own experience that this level of savings is achievable in refurbishments as well as new build despite what the major players in the building industry might say.

4.2 Our first two insulation/renovation jobs were for people who had just retired and were using their pension lump sums to invest in a project which would give them long term, increasing savings rather than leaving the money in a bank account which wasn’t giving any significant return. This is obviously not a course of action which most house owners could undertake so is not a model to roll out 625,000 homes per year.

5.1 This amount of work could not be organized efficiently on an individual basis by individual householders, although it may be necessary initially to get the ball rolling. It would require contracts let a street at a time and properly supervised by a qualified person appointed by the payee, i.e. the government. Only in this way could the immense scale of this project be realized and realized to a satisfactory quality standard and in the limited time available.

5.2 Some organizations such as Transition Towns and local Greening Campaigns are trying to organize groups of householders to purchase renewable technology installations on a group basis with a significant discount but the problem of finance comes up, especially in our current constrained times and makes uptake low despite the Feed In Tariff (FIT). Large scale insulation installation is even less likely to happen so intervention will be required if the Government’s energy reduction targets are to be reached.

5.3 It would probably be best to start with Housing Association homes as they have the organization in place to get the scheme off the ground quickly. Their tenants are probably also the most vulnerable in society to fuel poverty. Care would have to be taken in this sector over repayments as tenants, especially the elderly, might not achieve the savings possible as they would take some of the new advantage in higher comfort levels. The fuel savings and publicity generated in the public housing sector would then lead to a demand from private owners to have the work done on their homes, especially as it would be entirely free.

5.4 An education campaign would be necessary to explain the scheme and how the insulation would work as there is some public skepticism about the efficacy of insulation. It is not, unfortunately, seen as “sexy” compared to the “bling” of a renewable energy installation.

6.1 The standards of insulation, U-values, required, which are similar to PasivHaus and AECB requirements, would be as follows

6.2 These are insulation standards which have been achieved in our refurbishments and are levels which should be required in all Building Regulations applications for renovations, extensions and new build. These standards of building have been readily achieved on new builds in this country for a number of years now but not, unfortunately, by our national builders, whose standards remain woefully low.

I went to a lecture at UCL earlier this week on fuel poverty and found that unfortunately this scheme will not address the problems of many in fuel poverty because they do not heat their homes as they can't afford it. It will still help them though as the temperature of the home will be raised and it will reduce health problems from mould growth on cold surfaces and just living in a constantly cold environment._________________Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez

The 'fuel poverty' thing - that's also used as an argument against TEQs, that the poor would suffer disproportionately from necessary fuel price increases (hey, they're gonna come anyway).

It's perfectly obvious that both schemes need to come into effect, backed by central taxation - and means testing if necessary. I know people hate means testing but the situation's getting desperate._________________I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker

Is it TEQs where you get issued with a certain carbon ration and if you use less you can sell the spare ration on to people who need more. The poor are issued with more quota than they need and can then sell spare quota onto people like Woodburner who don't believe in global warming and use more energy than they should but at a high price so that there is a punishment involved in not tackling energy wastage._________________Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez

No, everyone (above the age of 16) gets the same quota. Poor people need help in not wasting their quota (through 'fuel poverty'), i.e., badly insulated houses and open fires, your area of expertise.

But yes, if you don't use your quota you can sell or (preferably) destroy your unneeded amount._________________I experience pleasure and pains, and pursue goals in service of them, so I cannot reasonably deny the right of other sentient agents to do the same - Steven Pinker

Em, I know that everyone gets the same quota but what I was trying to say is that the quota starts at a level above that which the smaller user requires so the smaller user, usually the poorer user, has a surplus to sell to get money to insulate and heat their house. The larger, more affluent user has to either buy more quota or spend money to insulate their house so that they don't have to buy quota any more. Over time the quota is reduced so that even less fuel gets used._________________Action is the antidote to despair - Joan Baez